Upskilling Training Guide Part 2 – 8 Tips for Success
In the first blog in this two-part series on upskilling training, we focused on what is needed to lay the groundwork and ensure your programme is focused on business needs and delivers on corporate objectives. In this second blog in the series, we are going to look at eight practical tips for success.
As a quick recap, upskilling involves providing e-learning courses and other training content to employees that further develop their existing skills. Upskilling also involves learners developing new skills related to their current roles.
8 Upskilling Training Tips
Facilitate Personalised Training Paths
Learners in your organisation will have varied capabilities and different skill sets. This applies even to learners who work in the same department or have the same responsibilities. As a result, the skills gaps that exist at an individual level are not consistent – some people will need more training in a particular area than others.
Put another way, everyone is different.
Therefore, the best approach when developing upskilling training is to facilitate personalised training paths. For example, allowing employees to decide which upskilling training courses to complete and including personalised training features within the courses.
Utilise Just-in-Time Training Strategies
Just-in-time training strategies are one way to facilitate personalised training paths. Just-in-time training also has other benefits, including high levels of engagement and behavioural change. This is because learners complete the training when they most need the information, so they are strongly motivated to learn.
Use Microlearning Training Strategies
Microlearning is another strategy that is not only a perfect fit for upskilling training but also works well with personalised training paths and just-in-time training strategies. Microlearning involves breaking training courses into small chunks that can be completed in short periods of time. With microlearning training courses, learners can dip in and out of a training course according to their schedules and responsibilities. They still achieve the same end result, but without having to go through the training all in one sitting.
Empower Learners
Getting employees to buy into your upskilling training programme is crucial to success. After all, employees might feel they are perfectly capable of doing their jobs now and don’t need additional skills to do so. Empowering learners helps to overcome this while increasing levels of motivation in their own professional development.
Empowering learners involves giving learners control over aspects of their own training, including upskilling training. This could, for example, involve letting learners decide on the skills development path they want to take.
Make the Training Relevant
Training that is overly generic or is not relevant to your business will not appeal to learners and will make it more difficult for you to achieve your objectives with the upskilling training programme. The solution is to make the training as relevant to your business (and to individual learners) as possible.
Make the Training Engaging
Upskilling training is as important – if not more important – as other training that your business offers to employees. As a result, it is essential to invest in upskilling training courses to ensure they are as interesting and engaging as possible.
By making upskilling training interesting and engaging, you will get better buy-in from learners and they will be more open to completing future training courses that you make available. Training courses that are engaging are also more likely to result in the behavioural changes that you want to achieve.
Develop Mentorship Programmes
E-learning content and other training materials are crucial to any upskilling training programme. However, mentorship programmes can also be effective in preparing learners ahead of completing an e-learning training course, as well as reinforcing the training afterward. Learners can ask questions, seek clarification where necessary, and get a better understanding of why upskilling is important and where they should focus their efforts next.
Review Progress
As with all training strategies and programmes, reviewing what you have done and the progress that has been made is a crucial and ongoing step. Reviews should benchmark the objectives and priorities that you defined at the start of the process. For example, have the identified skills gaps been sufficiently bridged to the point where the business now has the capabilities it needs? Has sufficient progress been made in developing skills the company will need in the future?
It is also important to get feedback on your upskilling training programme. This includes feedback from learners themselves as well as feedback from leaders and other key stakeholders.
Upskilling Training Guide Recap
We have covered a lot of ground over this two-blog series on developing an effective upskilling training programme. Here is a brief recap:
- Get an understanding of the needs of the business.
- Identify the skills gaps that exist in the business.
- Prioritise the skills your upskilling training programme should focus on.
- Foster a learning culture while breaking down knowledge silos.
- Where possible, connect upskilling with career pathways and development opportunities.
- Facilitate personalised training paths.
- Utilise effective e-learning development strategies such as just-in-time training and microlearning.
- Empower learners to take responsibility for their own development and upskilling.
- Make the training as relevant and engaging as possible.
- Take advantage of the opportunities that mentorship programmes offer.
- Regularly review progress and ask for feedback.
Upskilling training will help you attract and retain talent while making your business more competitive, agile, and productive. Following the above points will ensure your programme is as effective as possible.